NeoGeo was later dissolved, and its client contracts were taken over by another company. On January 1, 1998, Blender was released publicly online as SGI freeware. Some design choices and experiences for Blender were carried over from an earlier software application, called Traces, that Roosendaal developed for NeoGeo on the Commodore Amiga platform during the 1987–1991 period.
The name Blender was inspired by a song by the Swiss electronic band Yello, from the album Baby, which NeoGeo used in its showreel.
Version 1.00 was released in January 1995, with the primary author being company co-owner and software developer Ton Roosendaal. Blender was initially developed as an in-house application by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo, and was officially launched on January 2, 1994.
